The Mystery of Murray Davenport Part 3

"Yes, to some extent, though the business of making a bare living takes up a good deal of time. You observe the signs of various occupations here. I have amused myself a little in science, too,--you see the cabinet over there. I studied medicine once, and know a little about surgery, but I wasn't fitted--or didn't care--to follow that profession in a money-making way."

"You are exceedingly versatile."

"Little my versatility has profited me. Which reminds me of business.

When are these ill.u.s.trations to be ready, Mr. Larcher? And how many are wanted? I'm afraid I've been wasting your time."

In their brief talk about the task, Larcher, with the private design of better acquaintance, arranged that he should accompany the artist to certain riverside localities described in the text. Business details settled, Larcher observed that it was about dinnertime, and asked:

"Have you any engagement for dining?"

"No," said Davenport, with a faint smile at the notion.

"Then you must dine with me. I hate to eat alone."

"Thank you, I should be pleased. That is to say--it depends on where you dine."

"Wherever you like. I dine at restaurants, and I'm not faithful to any particular one."

"I prefer to dine as Addison preferred,--on one or two good things well cooked, and no more. Toiling through a ten-course _table d'hote_ menu is really too wearisome--even to a man who is used to weariness."

"Well, I know a place--Giffen's chop-house--that will just suit you. As a friend of mine, Barry Tompkins, says, it's a place where you get an unsurpa.s.sable English mutton-chop, a perfect baked potato, a mug of delicious ale, and afterward a cup of unexceptionable coffee. He says that, when you've finished, you've dined as simply as a philosopher and better than most kings; and the whole thing comes to forty-five cents."

"I know the place, and your friend is quite right."

Davenport took up a soft felt hat and a plain stick with a curved handle.

When the young men emerged from the gloomy hallway to the street, which in that part was beginning to be shabby, the street lights were already heralding the dusk. The two hastened from the region of deteriorating respectability to the grandiose quarter westward, and thence to Broadway and the clang of car gongs. The human crowd was hurrying to dinner.

"What a poem a man might write about Broadway at evening!" remarked Larcher.

Davenport replied by quoting, without much interest:

'The shadows lay along Broadway, 'Twas near the twilight tide--And slowly there a lady fair Was walking in her pride.'

"Poe praised those lines," he added. "But it was a different Broadway that Willis wrote them about."

"Yes," said Larcher, "but in spite of the skysc.r.a.pers and the incongruities, I love the old street. Don't you?"

"I used to," said Davenport, with a listlessness that silenced Larcher, who fell into conjecture of its cause. Was it the effect of many failures? Or had it some particular source? What part in its origin had been played by the woman to whose fickleness the man had briefly alluded?

And, finally, had the story behind it anything to do with Edna Hill's reasons for seeking information?

Pondering these questions, Larcher found himself at the entrance to the chosen dining-place. It was a low, old-fashioned doorway, on a level with the sidewalk, a little distance off Broadway. They were just about to enter, when they heard Davenport's name called out in a nasal, overbearing voice. A look of displeasure crossed Davenport's brow, as both young men turned around. A tall, broad man, with a coa.r.s.e, red face; a man with hard, glaring eyes and a heavy black mustache; a man who had intruded into a frock coat and high silk hat, and who wore a large diamond in his tie; a man who swung his arms and used plenty of the surrounding s.p.a.ce in walking, as if greedy of it,--this man came across the street, and, with an air of proprietorship, claimed Murray Davenport's attention.

CHAPTER III.

A READY-MONEY MAN

"I want you," bawled the gentleman with the diamond, like a rustic washerwoman summoning her offspring to a task. "I've got a little matter for you to look after. S'pose you come around to dinner, and we can talk it over."

"I'm engaged to dine with this gentleman," said Davenport, coolly.

"Well, that's all right," said the newcomer. "This gentleman can come, too."

"We prefer to dine here," said Davenport, with firmness. "We have our own reasons. I can meet you later."

"No, you can't, because I've got other business later. But if you're determined to dine here, I can dine here just as well. So come on and dine."

Davenport looked at the man wearily, and at Larcher apologetically; then introduced the former to the latter by the name of Bagley. Vouchsafing a brief condescending glance and a rough "How are you," Mr. Bagley led the way into the eating-house, Davenport chagrinned on Larcher's account, and Larcher stricken dumb by the stranger's outrage upon his self-esteem.

Nothing that Mr. Bagley did or said later was calculated to improve the state of Larcher's feelings toward him. When the three had pa.s.sed from the narrow entrance and through a small barroom to a long, low apartment adorned with old prints and playbills, Mr. Bagley took by conquest from another intending party a table close to a street window. He spread out his arms over as much of the table as they would cover, and evinced in various ways the impulse to grab and possess, which his very manner of walking had already shown. He even talked loud, as if to monopolize the company's hearing capacity.

As soon as dinner had been ordered,--a matter much complicated by Mr.

Bagley's calling for things which the house didn't serve, and then wanting to know why it didn't,--he plunged at once into the details of some business with Davenport, to which the ignored Larcher, sulking behind an evening paper, studiously refrained from attending. By the time the chops and potatoes had been brought, the business had been communicated, and Bagley's mind was free to regard other things. He suddenly took notice of Larcher.

"So you're a friend of Dav's, are you?" quoth he, looking with benign patronage from one young man to the other.

"I've known Mr. Davenport a--short while," said Larcher, with all the iciness of injured conceit.

"Same business?" queried Bagley.

"I beg your pardon," said Larcher, as if the other had spoken a foreign language.

"Are you in the same business he's in?" said Bagley, in a louder voice.

"I--write," said Larcher, coldly.

Bagley looked him over, and, with evident approval of his clothes, remarked: "You seem to've made a better thing of it than Dav has."

"I make a living," said Larcher, curtly, with a glance at Davenport, who showed no feeling whatever.

"Well, I guess that's about all Dav does," said Bagley, in a jocular manner. "How is it, Dav, old man? But you never had any business sense."

"I can't return the compliment," said Davenport, quietly.

Bagley uttered a mirthful "Yah!" and looked very well contented with himself. "I've always managed to get along," he admitted. "And a good thing for you I have, Dav. Where'ud you be to-day if you hadn't had me for your good angel whenever you struck hard luck?"

"I haven't the remotest idea," said Davenport, as if vastly bored.

"Neither have I," quoth Bagley, and filled his mouth with mutton and potato. When he had got these sufficiently disposed of to permit further speech, he added: "No, sir, you literary fellows think yourselves very fine people, but I don't see many of you getting to be millionaires by your work."

"There are other ambitions in life," said Larcher.

Mr. Bagley emitted a grunt of laughter. "Sour grapes! Sour grapes, young fellow! I know what I'm talking about. I've been a literary man myself."

Larcher arrested his fork half-way between his plate and his mouth, in order to look his amazement. A curious twitch of the lips was the only manifestation of Davenport, except that he took a long sip of ale.